My name is Trevor, and I am an alcoholic

Okay, so maybe I’m not an alcoholic, but I like to joke around about it and make people think that maybe I am.

I’ve been thinking recently about this passage from the Scarlet Letter. You know, it is amazing how, when you get older, it seems like old novels seem more relevant than they did back in high school. I remember arguing with my English teacher about this passage, although now I tend to think she was right and my naïve view was wrong. The passage pretty much sums up one of the main themes of the book, so if you haven’t read it, you really don’t need to after reading this, “Be true! Be true! Be true! Show freely to the world, if not your worst, yet some trait whereby the worst may be inferred!” My teacher thought this was very true. I didn’t like it because it was saying you should hide some of your self and only show a part of your self, something which didn’t seem to sit well with me. After 5 years I seem to be better able to understand and accept this theme. I certainly don’t, nor would I want to, show the world the worst of myself, so it seems much more acceptable to show some trait whereby, “the worst may be inferred”. Although, I don’t know how I feel about that either. Thus, I play the alcoholic, sometimes the homosexual, sometimes the sexist, male chauvinist pig, the insensitive jerk, or a godless infidel. None of these are in fact true (at least not completely true, although they may be an exaggerated form of the truth). However, even if the world knows them to be false, perhaps it will allow them to catch a glimpse of a true negative trait, and from that perhaps they will be able to infer the worst traits. Why would I want people to infer the worst traits? Well, perhaps if they ever do find out they won’t be completely caught off guard. They could say to them selves, “I could see how Trevor could do that”. Also, it would lower people’s expectations, so that when I do mess up in some small area, they’re not surprised because they are assuming I in fact do far worse, which is most likely true.

(Note: I just don’t want anyone to worry. I haven’t murdered anyone, nor stole any significant amounts of money from anyone important. Nor have I raped, or committed arson. Nor is this an exhaustive list of things I haven’t done, just a short one to lessen any concerns that may be out there.)